


talking back

by sparxwrites



Series: Critical Role hc_bingo [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Slavery, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 15:56:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11421282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: “My best friend’s gonna kill you,” says Kashaw, conversationally, trudging along behind the cart the traders had leashed his hands to.(In which Kashaw has what one might call a Bad Day.)





	talking back

“My best friend’s gonna kill you,” says Kashaw, conversationally, trudging along behind the cart the traders had leashed his hands to. They’d caught him unawares, stripped out of his armour and down to the waist in a rare moment of vulnerability. He’d not known there were slavers in these parts, when he’d decided to stop for the evening and take the opportunity to wash in the cold mountain river that ran alongside the road.

That’s clearly what these people are, though – slavers. There’s him, hands bound and then tied with rope to the back of a covered cart, but there’s also several others in a cage-wagon ahead of him, faces pressed wide-eyed and filthy against the bars. He can see what looks like a tiefling amongst a few humans, their reddish-dark skin standing out against the peaches and browns of the others, and what might be a goliath child, and feels the anger bubble beneath his skin.

He _does not_ like slavers. Doesn’t like anyone that makes sport out of other people’s lives, for that matter. Especially those that deal in children, young and scared and confused, pulled screaming away from their parents by unfamiliar hands and unfriendly faces, shoved down on a bed and-

Well. Suffice to say, he considers them worst kinds of cowards and thieves, the lot of them, dealing in the stealing and trading of humans as if they were cattle.

“Seriously, though,” he continues, as though his bare chest isn’t slowly freezing, and the stones in the damp-mud road aren’t cutting into his feet. He’s grinning, despite everything, a nasty bared-teeth expression made all the worse by the blood in his teeth, the swelling-closed of one eye. “She’s scary, you know. Way scarier than me, kiddo, and she’s gonna _fuck you up_.”

They all ignore him, the crazy man muttering to himself at the back of the cart, hardly a threat. He doesn’t even have any magic left, having burned through it all during the day’s fighting. All he has is his voice – and, clearly, that’s not working, since they’re barely paying attention to him. Instead, one of them begins banging their club against the bars of the cage, apparently deliberately aiming for the fingers of the prisoners crammed inside it.

Kashaw sees red.

“Hey!” he yells, as the goliath child cries out high and sharp in fear. His eyes are near _burning_ with anger, as though he could drop them all dead with the sheer force of his rage. “Hey, you fuckers! Are you goddamn listening to me? She’s gonna rip your wretched throats out with her _teeth_ , you sick bastards, and I’m gonna fucking watch, and I’m gonna laugh, you hear me? Fucking _laugh_.” 

He barks out a sharp, aggressive noise that barely resembles even the blackest of humour, but it seems to catch the attention of at least one of the slavers. He’s not convinced they can understand him, not convinced they speak Exandrian Common, but he assumes that being a mouthy shit will annoy them sufficiently to catch their attention.

As it turns out, he’s right. The one that was terrorising the band’s other captives turns, nose wrinkled in displeasure, and leaves instead to stalk over to where Kashaw’s chained behind the cart. They snarl at him, say something in a language he doesn’t understand – but the tone is unmistakable, anger and disgust and disdain written plain across their face.

Kashaw grins back at them, lip curled up to bare gritted teeth, and spits at them with all the bloody saliva he can muster.

The blow, when it comes, isn’t entirely unexpected. The sheer _speed_ of it, though, the power behind the single backhanded strike, _is_. He’s standing, one moment, and then the next- well, he’s not entirely sure, but his face is a red-hot flare of pain and his ears are ringing and he tastes blood against his tongue, iron and bitter and slick. It’s a familiar taste, but no more pleasant because of it.

Face-down in a muddy puddle, with the filthy water stinging his eyes, it’s difficult to tell, but he’s fairly sure they’ve broken his nose. His shoulders throb with fresh, dull pain from where they’ve been wrenched by the fall and the ropes pulled taut around his wrists, and it’s all he can do to hope they haven’t been dislocated.

For a long minute, it’s all he can do to lay there, exhaling unevenly and trying to curl up as best he can to protect his bare skin from the scrape of the road as he’s dragged forward by the continued progress of the cart. He’s too stunned to even try and get his legs underneath him, to do anything other than fight to protect himself from the rough, uneven surface beneath him ripping at his skin like tissue paper.

After several feet, the group seem to realise he’s not going to get up any time soon like this – and, probably more importantly from their perspective, that damaged merchandise won’t sell. There’s a whistle, a faint nicker from the horse harnessed up front, and the cart mercifully, blessedly stops.

Kashaw feels a little like passing out, or perhaps sobbing quiet pain, but settles instead for taking a deep breath and bracing himself for the pain to come.

He picks himself up out of the mud slowly, painfully, aching all over and now soaked and chilled down to the core. The cart jolts forward again, halfway through, nearly yanking him off his feet again – but he manages to keep upright, by some miracle, stumbling unsteadily forward despite the shivers beginning to wrack him and the way his fingers have gone numb and purpling with the too-tight bindings.

He’s had worse, he reminds himself, breathing in and out, centering himself, pushing the pain away as best he can. He’s had worse, and he survived. He’ll survive this too.

The slaver that had hit him jeers, eyes cruel, looking excited at the sight of blood, at the hunch of his shoulders and the purple-blue of his fingers and the way he’s shaking badly, uncontrollably. He’s only still on his feet by some miracle, barely managing to force himself to put one lacerated foot in front of another in time to the clop of the horse’s hooves.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement, among the thick woods that line the road they’re moving down. A flash of pale eyes in the darkness, a purple-red tint to the shadows, the faintest glint of a crystal tipped staff.

Despite everything, he _smiles._

“Oh yeah,” mutters Kashaw, mostly to himself, head down and shoulders hunched as he struggles to keep up with the cart on feet so cold he can no longer feel his toes. “Laugh away, big guy. Wait ‘til Zahra gets here. She’s gonna fucking tear you in _two_.”

**Author's Note:**

> for the hc_bingo prompt "strapped to a moving vehicle", which i admittedly interpreted rather liberally. if you like this, you can find similar stuff (and weird critical role porn) and me at @sparxwrites on tumblr.


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